If you want people to switch to Scheme, explain why they should and how it would benefit them, don't just say "lol ur language is teh sux, use mine". That's exactly the kind of stupid shit that gives Lisp users a reputation as a bunch of arrogant assholes.

And yes, Scheme is a great language, and I love it, but it's not the best thing for every situation. If you truly think one language is the best choice for everything, then you're a total idiot.

Also, no even slightly popular browser supports client side scripting with Scheme, and most web hosts don't offer server-side scripting with it either.

If you truly think one language is the best choice for everything, then you're a total idiot.

That's right! If you write applications that require fewer than 5 different languages for ongoing maintenance, you're just fitting a square peg into a round hole! You're just one of the "I have a hammer so everything is a nail" people! Your custom JVM written in C should be interpreting java byte codes that have embedded Python scripts that build Javascript output that interpret TCL for maximum flexibility! Bah

That's exactly the kind of stupid shit that gives Lisp users a reputation as a bunch of arrogant assholes.
And yes, Scheme is a great language, and I love it, but it's not the best thing for every situation. If you truly think one language is the best choice for everything, then you're a total idiot.

First to insult me as a Lisp bigot, then you try to associate yourself with it. Amusing! You Python bottom feeders shouldn't be so sensitive.

I can't say I have specialized in it, but I have used it. If you are going to program with side effects (OO) it doesn't get any simpler. I could live with it. How can anyone explain the madness of Python's fashionability over smalltalk?

1. There is no "Smalltalk". There are different sets of libraries, e.g. Squeak, F-Script, all based around the syntax and paradigm.
2. Smalltalk never became very popular, partly because at the time the speed boost of a lower level language was more noticeable than it is now. Python is also less fast than lower level languages, but that isn't as important now and Python has gotten a lot of momentum.

Python reached critical mass, SmallTalk did not. A language is not everything, there is also the tools, libraries, community etc. Python is not best at any one of those. But it is good in every one of those.Let's take an example:I don't like C++ as a language. But I much rather develop a Win32 database front-end in C++ Builder rather than Python. Why? Because this specific tool was perfected for that specific task with a proper IDE and a great framework. Likewise, there are tasks for which Python is the bes

Hurting the eyes is an infinitely practical metric. The parentheses in Scheme make it truly painful to read and write, at least for me. Python is very easy to read and write. I use both Scheme and Python, and while I have never had trouble with Python indentation I always mess up the parentheses in Scheme, and I continually have to start counting to figure out where things begin and end.
If you want a good functional language that's easy on the eyes, use Haskell.

The language where each programmer uses macros to try to reinvent their very own real object system,

Some do. I use yasos which is part of slib. You must be a C++ person who doesn't like macros because one of the priests of strong typing told you not to. A pity. Macros are an irreplacable feature being forgotten now in dumbed down languages. Read Paul Graham's On Lisp someday and get clued in.

I am very experienced in C++, and it totally sucks. Yet you go ahead and make the assumption that I would advocate usage of such an RSI-inducing language. I was also using Lisp decades ago when you were probably still in grade school, and I am very familiar a couple of dozen other languages. Sorry to break your bubble, but Scheme isn't the panacea that you make it out to be. It's a good language for writing compilers or implementing other languages, but beyond that niche it's not s

I was also using Lisp decades ago when you were probably still in grade school, and I am very familiar a couple of dozen other languages.

To display such ignorance after these long decades doesn't speak well of you.

Sounds great on paper, but in the real world, you don't really get anywhere with it. 50 years after Lisp was invented, it's still on the fringes, and that's one reason why: no standardized powerful constructs.

This is an argument? Any language goes through this period of balkanization. How ma

Wrong, and though I'm redundant, I'll repeat it so it's visible in the thread. You can write Python in DOS edit, notepad, TextPad, anything on windows that saves as plain text, and as long as you are consistent with what you use for indentation (all tabs, or all spaces), it will work.

I would never understand python and making it indent-dependant ruined the language in my opinion, lack of block begin/close is just lame and makes the stuff harder to read besides it goes against one of the main principles of programming . Programs must have an start and an end.I actually think that if anything it makes things harder to read. For an scripting language that is supposed to be easy then specific begin and end blocks for different kinds of statements are always a good idea. So you know that "th

Have you ever tried to read a Python program? Python's one of the most readable programming languages around. Part of this is because it doesn't use entirely superfluous syntax like curly braces everywhere.

it goes against one of the main principles of programming . Programs must have an start and an end.

Have you ever tried to read a Python program? Python's one of the most readable programming languages around. Part of this is because it doesn't use entirely superfluous syntax like curly braces everywhere.

just because it is readable to you, that is used to it, don't mean is automaticly readable to everyone. Block delimiters, be they brackets like C derived languages or the "do" "end" from other languages like ruby do help reading. The lack of delimiters make it harder to understant when two blocks end at

Many of us Pythoneers have been there. Exactly where you are, bitching about the "whitespace".Only after using it for a little while we understood that we can never go back.The way I resisted whitespace in the beginning now seems so stupid..There really is no real claim against significant whitespace except the knee-jerk reaction of ".. but.. but.. its just wrong!"

If you actually try to use Python, you'll never want to go back to cluttering your visual space with unnecessary noise {}.

To me, this implies that in a large program, you have very large blocks.
Why don't you just divide them up into very small functions...?

You're right in that the issue that I'm addressing is really large blocks, particularly when there are nested blocks of any size as well. My tendency is to use functions for code that will be repeated at some point. My concern with your suggestion is that arbitrarily dividing up a block of related code into functions would just cause other readability problems (havi

My tendency is to use functions for code that will be repeated at some point.

I strongly disagree with this method. I agree with the whole functions' section in the Linux kernel coding style.

I think that you should divide functions such that each function is trivial and more importantly trivially verifiable. With good naming conventions and division of responsibilities, you don't need to "jump between functions" as you only read the functions for implementation details. The interface and what they do should

When I first learnt python I assumed the whitespace thing would be no big deal, it's only after using it for a while that I saw how moronic it was.

No offence, but I believe you are lying here. I mean, I think that a little white lie of "yeah I used it a lot and then I thought so" is much easier on your keyboard and much more probable than you ACTUALLY USING PYTHON and disliking the whitespace. People who actually use Python for REAL work, really tend to become fans of the significant whitespace.

None taken, python fan boys wishing reality were different is well documented. See, you did it again.

I can take your becoming offensive as strong evidence that you indeed lied there.:-)Ofcourse my belief that was a lie is simply based on experience arguing with several real-life developers who lie that they used Python because they know that otherwise their whitespace knee-jerk reaction is silly and they are portrayed as dumb.

You mis-spelt "of course they don't work, you have to use this totally di

I can take your becoming offensive as strong evidence that you indeed lied there.:-)

You called me a liar, without knowing anything about me... and presumably without even looking at my website. I'm pretty bored arguing with you, as you're just giving the party line of "Oh, that opinion's not really a problem... you just think it is, but you're wrong" combined with offensivly suggesting I'm just stupid for not realizing this on my own. So allow me to just say: Your opinion is wrong, you ignorant pyth

They're all good, they're all useful, and they're all readable (although Perl comes at the bottom of my list.)

But your block-ending comment is inane. You can never know *what* block was ending (ie, what control or condition statement started the block) without scrolling up, indentation-dependant or curly-brace dependant. You must use *really* fancy closing brakets; the kind that actually contain meta-data on the block they're closing or something.

I am one of those programers, I tried python two or three times and there are other things that I don't like about it, like having to declare the "self" parameter for instance. But all of those things are minnor in relation to the "white space" is the block thingy. This makes it harder for me to read the code, make's it all ugly and seem wrong. It takes the fun out of the programing.I like ruby much better, too bad it is not as popular as python. But the main point here is that all of this is a matter of ta

It's pretty cool of Yahoo to provide so much to the dev community. It's definitely improved my feelings about the company.

I wonder why they've made this foray into the Python world? I know they decided to focus on PHP a few years back. Did they find some tasks were easier to accomplish in Python? Or are they simply trying to reach out to another developer community?

Every time I see a story about Yahoo concerning developers, it's exactly what I want to hear. While their competitors are saying "do no evil", Yahoo seems to be living it.

I don't know if I'm quite there yet, but my hard-to-break habit of Googling everything might be worth breaking if this kind of developer-focused attitude from Yahoo continues like it has. It's at least very tempting.

Because Google's Summer of Code, or code.google.com or, more importantly, code.google.com/hosting weren't enough? The hundred patches that Google gave back to Wine after getting Wine to work with Picasa, or the many other libraries and APIs that Google provides. What Yahoo is doing is great, but you're not giving Google nearly enough credit.Regards,Steve

What Yahoo is doing is great, but you're not giving Google nearly enough credit.

You might be right. But I've had the chance to use the Web API's for Yahoo, Google, and MSN. Yahoo's Web Search API has been much easier to use than Google's or MSN's. I know there are many other API's to use than just web search, but I've been impressed with what I've seen from Yahoo, more so than from the others.

Direction is everything, and you have to admit Yahoo has been moving in the right direction lately. Here's to hoping they don't lose focus of what's giving them such good publicity! =)

The whole point of a web service is that it is language-neutral. There is nothing preventing you from using Ruby or any other language that can take advantage of web services. Just look at the WSDL and make use of it.

I know everybody gets hung up on the whitespace thing when they look at Python. But you know what? Once you start actually coding in it for any significant amount of time, it's not a big deal. When you first start, I know you expect it to be really annoying, but that simply doesn't turn out to be the case. The supposed problem evaporates.

Every time you hear anybody moan about Python's significant whitespace, ask them how long they've spent actually writing Python. You'll see the same thing as I do - that virtually everybody complaining has never given Python a chance, and that virtually everybody who has given Python a chance has realised that the significant whitespace isn't a big deal.

No lambdas? Seriously? So the lambda keyword that my copy of Python 2.5 recognises is..what? A local patch? Or simply evidence that you don't have the slightest clue of what you're talking about?

No ternary operator? Firstly, this isn't C, and secondly, you'll be happy to know that people who're unwilling to learn new approaches have bitched often and hard enough that it now exists in a pythonic form: http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0308/ [python.org] You'll find the PEP interesting for at least two reasons (hint: i

Well, of course that isn't true. Lambda is syntactically limited in Python. Instead you have to use named functions if you are doing something complicated that can't fit in a lambda. That causes two changes: you have to come up with a name for the function (which I don't think is a substantial burden) and you have to declare the function before you use it (which can be a little annoying in some circumstances). But altogether, the lambda thing is way overused as a criticism; anonymous func

That's what I thought too. I was very skeptical until I actually started learning rails. I now see why it is getting very popular, because it takes advantage of some of the unique aspects of Ruby to blur that dividing line. It actually provides both abstraction and versatility. You get a lot of help out of the box or through an increasing number of plugins, but there are also convenient hooks to customize apps in pretty much any way you want.

Furthermore, unlike their previous offerings, they have released little new code here. The only code they have released is an API to their search engine. The rest seem to be HOWTOs on how to python to access their services.

While browsing through this, I noticed the following in ther Weather RSS feed page:

The feeds are provided free of charge for use by individuals and non-profit organizations for personal, non-commercial uses.

and then

Yahoo! also reserves the right to require you to cease distributing these feeds at any time for any reason.

So, while it's cool and all, is there any value to using their weather RSS feed (and I assume it's similar with other services), beyond my ability to play with them? I mean, even I'm not making any money off it, presumably, if I put the effort in accessing those feeds, I expect them to be available to me in the future? Or do they provide a paid-for version for this?

Yahoo! also reserves the right to require you to cease distributing these feeds at any time for any reason.

So, while it's cool and all, is there any value to using their weather RSS feed (and I assume it's similar with other services), beyond my ability to play with them? I mean, even I'm not making any money off it, presumably, if I put the effort in accessing those feeds, I expect them to be available to me in the future? Or do they provide a paid-for version for this?

Why? It's their service, they could stop it or move it to a pay service at any time. Guess what, anyone providing a free service could do that even (gasp) Google. They could make GMail a pay service tomorrow if they felt like it.

I didn't say anywhere I want them to provide their service to me for free. If it makes it easier to understand, assume I'm willing to pay money to subscribe to this service in exchange to the guarantee that it would be available to me for a year. Can I do that? Or all they provide is the free version that they can discontinue at any time for any reason?

Not only did they release a nice guide, but the guide is actually good: while the first XML library they talk about in XML parsing is xml.dom.minidom, they also explain how to use the XML API with effbot's ElementTree (and link to both ElementTree and cElementTree), which is more than likely the best Python XML library. And the recommend UFP (Universal Feed Parser) for RSS parsing.

The worst thing you can say about them is that they did their homework, kudos to the Yahoo guys.

I'm just glad they did this ahead of any Ruby foray. Online, all I hear anymore is loud rowdy Ruby peope and anti-Python people, some of whom are the same. At the bookstore, I easily see two times more Python books than Ruby. This tells me that despite the online hype, there's still a lot of quiet interest in Python and it isn't that Ruby or anything else is pushing us aside, it's that we're not very vociferous.Which is fine with me. As long as Yahoo and other outlets keep that in mind that is. Python is no

Python is used commercially all over the place. My friend bought Civilization IV, and I was astounded to see it supports game modifications via Python. Meanwhile, I read an interview with the guy behind PyQt, the Python bindings for Trolltech's Qt library, and he said he has over 200 commercial users - including Disney, Pixar, and Industrial Light and Magic. All of these companies use Python and Qt, an extremely powerful app development environment if I've ever seen one. It seems like a natural match.So the

In the interest of being fair, Ruby is the current hype language and hasn't had much in the way of books until recently, of course book sales are going to be way up. I would expect them to die down a bit as the language reaches whatever natural saturation level it is going to hit.

I also am having a hard time recalling any good OReilly Python books that came out recently. That may have something to do with this as well.

This page mainly demonstrates how to take advantage of Yahoo's APIs with Python. I think that the engineers and managers at Yahoo must be paying attention to the competative edge in productivity that Python can offer. It really is an all purpose programming tool that works well in many niches.

What does religion have to do with programming languages? As a _true_ atheist you should care about this particular point.I'm an atheist too, and the point is to keep our minds open and willing to accept and change our thoughts.You cannot ignore other people just because of their religion, that is not what an atheist stands for, we are against those lines of thinking.

Would you not take your medication if you found it it was invented by a religious person?